War of a Different Kind

So much to talk about these days... gas prices are on the rise again, Dick Cheney's jetsetting all over Asia threatening seemingly every other country on this planet, the Oscars were last night...

But I want to talk about hockey. Why? Because I like hockey.

And what I've seen over these last few nights, were it to happen in any other sport, would be all anyone can talk about. Alas, it's hockey, running a distant 4th among the professional team sports these days (and in danger of falling behind pro lacrosse or TeamTennis), so nobody cares. What happened over the last few nights wasn't the start of a rivalry, it was almost an international incident. You see, a U.S. border city and the capital city of Canada are now officially at each others throats.

Let's set the scene: Buffalo's HSBC Arena... mid-2nd period of a game between the Buffalo Sabres and the Ottawa Senators, the top 2 teams in the NHL's Northeast Division. And here's what happened...





It should be noted that Ottawa's Chris Neil was thrown in the penalty box for fighting, NOT for the hit. Drury has a concussion and needed 20 stitches to close the gash on his head. He is out indefinitely as the Sabres try to maintain the best record in hockey leading up to the playoffs. Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said after the game that he was proud of his guys for standing up for their injured star. He also admitted that when he sent his fourth line out for the ensuing faceoff, he said, "Go out and run 'em." In baseball, the equivalent would be telling your pitcher to "stick it in his ear." The next day, both teams and coaches were woofing at each other about everything that happened. Saturday dawned with word that the NHL had dished out its punishment for the whole affair... a $10,000 fine on Ruff. NO PUNISHMENT FOR NEIL. They declared his head-shot a "clean hit."

Sabres owner Tom Golisano apparently disagreed, and he sent a letter to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman decrying the lack of discipline for cheap shots. "It's called respect," Golisano put it, saying that yes there is a place for hitting and fighting in hockey, but never a place for going after a guy's head. Meanwhile, hockey fans everywhere were choosing up sides, some siding with the Sabres for sticking by their player, some calling Ruff and Sabres fans a bunch of "whiners."

As fate would have it, the Sabres and Senators had to play each other again the very next game, Saturday night in Ottawa. Ottawa coach Brian Murray put Brian McGrattan in his lineup for the first time in ten games... just to have an extra goon in the lineup. McGrattan proceeded to dog the Buffalo players during pregame warmups, trying to get one of them to throw down before the game even started. Neil played the first period like a crazed lunatic looking for someone to drop the gloves and fight him. In the first 24 minutes, he got called for THREE penalties. In the first intermission, the Buffalo studio hosts interviewed an Ottawa TV commentator about the whole situation, and the Ottawa commentator declared that when he read Golisano's letter, he thought "the whining has reached a new low." Then the Buffalo studio host cut him off and the next thing we know, THEY'RE yelling at each other.

And then, midway through the second period after Ottawa scored 3 quick goals to go ahead 4-1, Chris Neil took another shot at a Buffalo player's head...



Neil was again given 5 for fighting, not ejected, and will likely not be fined, even though Colin Campbell, the so-called "head of discipline" in the NHL was at the game. Incidentally, Neil and McGrattan played a total of 9 minutes and served 15 minutes combined in the penalty box... and Buffalo's the ones who play dirty?

Golisano was right, Ruff was right, and everyone taking Buffalo's side on this matter are right. Ottawa in my eyes is a dirty team playing for a dirty coach (who once ordered his player to run an opposing goaltender when he was the coach in Anaheim), and the fact that their fans lap this stuff up speaks very ill of the supposed "nice" people of Canada's capital city. Now you all know from reading this blog that I am very much into all things Canadian, but even I find fault with what's going on here.

And now these two cities, Buffalo and Ottawa, officially hate each other. Buffalo's fans are taking up collections to pay Lindy Ruff's fine to the NHL. Each of those YouTube videos I posted here come with a comments section featuring hyper-jingoistic Canadians and Americans trash-talking about each other's country.

So after all this, I turned on ESPN's "Sports Reporters" show Sunday morning expecting to see the "holier-than-thous" do their obligatory condemnation of all parties involved in the fracas. I expected them to decry the very existence of violence in hockey and say that this is why hockey will never be accepted as a popular sport in America... right, the same country whose redneck population whoops and hollers over a sport involving violent car crashes and drivers occasionally beating the crap out of each other (otherwise known as NASCAR). Instead, they didn't even bring it up... and that silence may be more telling. The fact that this didn't even make the national sports radar may show just how far hockey has fallen. I don't know how to bring it back, but perhaps if the NHL could control its sport a little more and spare us the chance of another on-ice tragedy like a Steve Moore or a Donald Brashear (both of whom suffered serious head injuries as the result of such on-ice headhunting), that might be a start.